Yahoo’s Panama ad platform will launch in UK / Europe in Q02

By Jenstar on March 22, 2007, 6:35 pm

At Seodays, we had the pleasure of hearing Andrew Buckman (EU Product Director for Yahoo Search Marketing) talk about Yahoo Search Marketing’s new ad platform Panama. While Panama launched in the US late last year, UK / European advertisers have been anxiously awaiting for Panama to hit across the Atlantic.

So when will these advertisers get their hands on the new Panama platform? A lot sooner than you think! Panama will be launched in Q02 (Q01 will end at the end of March). It should be available to advertisers by the beginning of May, but my instinct says that advertisers will likely see it sooner than that, in mid to late April.

Seodays attendees has a lot of questions for Andrew, and he put on a great presentation showing advertisers what the new Panama platform would be like.

I also asked about when the Yahoo Publisher Network would be available to UK and/or European publishers, and the answer wasn’t as soon as Panama. Panama is the priority launch at the moment, so YPN is more on the backburner until then. But I am keeping my fingers crossed that Panama will go international by the end of 2007.

And thank you to Andrew for such an awesome presentation, attendees had nothing but positive feedback about the Panama presentation. And especially since he allowed all attendees to have a copy of the powerpoint so they could check out the slides and screenshots in more detail… and I know a couple advertisers were angling me on how to get into the initial wave of Panama migrations, which is always a positive sign a presentation is well received.

This is what I hear is on tap…Better local targeting, for one. Pick a region of the US, and you’ll be able to deliver ads to those either searching from that region or using common terms related to that region. Wildcard targeting, which exists now, will be made easier to use. New conversion tracking tools are to be offered, assuming you want to provide data to Yahoo.